• CAPTURE WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND (DROPBOX + MACDOWN > EVERNOTE)- TUTORIAL FOR MacOS
  • THE STORY OF SCREENSHOT:
  • INSTRUCTIONS:
  • HOW TO USE IT:

CAPTURE WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND (DROPBOX + MACDOWN > EVERNOTE)- TUTORIAL FOR MacOS

THE STORY OF SCREENSHOT:

Reasons why I love using Evernote: For years, I was an Evernote power user. It could store everything I possibly needed, and make it available everywhere from my laptop to my phone and my tablet. One of the best feature I like is screenshot clipping on Mac (this feature requires a few steps more on Windows) by using this powerful hotkey Cmd + Ctrl + C. This is how the clipping feature looks like:

How cool is that! In addition, as you can see from the above screenshot, you can add text to that small 'drop-down' workplace when you click on the evernote icon on the menu bar.

Reasons why I STOP using Evernote: It happens when I started using Macdown(one of the best Markdown editor). It has so many useful features such as:

• Fenced Code Block with syntax highlighted like this:

• TeX-like math syntax
• Detect table of contents token(Table of contents for headings)

However, sometimes I miss the cool clipping feature from Evernote. It's because it is too much work to add a photo into markdown. Normally, you have to take a screenshot > Copy it to Dropbox public folder > Copy Public Link > Write markdown code to show the image (Macdown can render local images, but I prefer storing them in my dropbox). It takes 4 steps in markdown whereas I only need 1 step with Evernote. So I decided to integrate this Evernote feature into markdown.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Thanks to Andy Taylor for the instructions of Better OSX Screenshots with Shell Scripts. I have borrowed some from him then added some of mine. Here are the tutorials of how I do:

• Step 1: Open Automator > Choose Service

• Step 2: Change Service receive to 'no input', and then drag these following actions to the right panel 1) Run Shell Script + 2) Get Contents of Clipboard + 3) Run Shell Script (As Picture Shown)

• Step 3: Get Dropbox User ID

You can get your dropbox User ID by: Got to Public Folder > Right Click on any file > Copy Public Link > Paste it to your web browser URL

You should get any link like this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/278685/Screensh...

Your ID is after /u/. In my case, the ID is 278685

• Step 4: Create two folder in Dropbox Public Folder. First folder is shots ( This folder will contains all of your screenshot photos). Second folder is shots_text_file (this folder contains only 1 file named text.mdown)

• Step 5: Get back to Automator in Step 2:

• Step 5a: First shell script

dropboxuser=278685 # Replace with your ID
directoryname=shots
filename=shot_`date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S'`.png
path=~/Dropbox/Public/$directoryname/
mkdir -p $path
screencapture -o -i $path$filename
open --reveal $path$filename
publicurl=![image]\(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/$dropboxuser/$directoryname/$filename\)
printf $publicurl | pbcopy

• Step 5b: Second shell script

pbpaste >> ~/Dropbox/Public/shots_text_file/text.mdown
printf '\n\n' >> ~/Dropbox/Public/shots_text_file/text.mdown

• Step 6: Save your Automator with name as script_screenshots

• Step 7: Open Preferences > Keyboard, then go to Screen Shots Uncheck Save Picture of selected area...

• Step 8: go to Services to check script_screenshots under General. And then assign hot keys Cmd + Shift + 4 for this service.

HOW TO USE IT:

• Trigger with a hotkey: Cmd + Shift + 4 then take your screenshot. Here are two screenshots that I took:

>Pic 1:

>Pic 2:

• Open Dropbox > Public > shot_text_file > text.mdown You will have something like this:

• Note: In fact, I rarely use this text.mdown file. I just use it as a backup md file, or when I need to take the dozens or hundreds of screenshots at the same time( For Example: Copy Chegg Homework Solutions by Screenshots. :D). Usually, each time I take screenshot by triggering Cmd + Shift + 4, I just navigate to my Macdown editor and then Cmd + V.